I took my two newer rattie babies now named (Orion and Oskar) to the vets as after changing their bedding and waiting a little while to see if the sneezing and wheezing would be reduced. It hadnt so I ruled out the possibility of sensitivity to the bedding I was using. The vet said he could tell they have an upper respiratory infection, and said the first thing hed do is try them on some an antibiotics and see if it helps. If not the next step would be to take swabs. Hes provided baytril for them both for a 10day initial course. And then for use a week at a time when they have flare ups. Im just concerned this isnt long enough as ive read up about treatments ect and most say the course needs to be longer or the bacteria could become resistent? Also hes told me to keep them seperate from my other two as even once it clears up they could be long term carriers and its ideal to keep them seperate indeffinetly. Problem is theyve already been in the same room as my other two cages literally next to eachother and they have even spent time in the opposite cages before to try help with the start of intros. And ive handled both groups without handwashing inbetween. I never knew quarantine was a thing with rats So my main question is do I still keep them seperated from my older boys or are they likely to have already caught the infection? My logical brain would tell me theres not much point keeping them seperate now and i may aswell introduce them and upgrade to the Popamazing bird cage for them all to live in? But if im wromg about the two older ones likely to have already contracted anything they could from the newer ones after 2weeks I would keep them in seperate cages. Any advice would be great! Im only 3months into having ratty companions! Definitly have a lot to learn!

Your brain is right, there is no point in separating them, and it is actively the wrong thing to do from a social aspect. When rats have respiratory symptoms, the usual culprits are organisms which all rats have anyway so they can't infect any others, and if there were to be a new virus (e.g. brought in from vets or a pet shop or a show) then it would be spread very quickly before any symptoms showed up.

If your respy rats are under 3 months old, then the two most likely causes of symptoms are parasitic bronchitis which needs to be treated with ivermectin, or pasteurella which responds best to a combination of baytril and either septrin or synulox (amoxycillin). Older rats may suffer from myco, and baytril is usually good at treating that, but some severe cases benefit from having doxycycline as well.

Many vets underdose baytril, so that's something else to check - a 300g rat should have roughly 0.15ml twice a day, and a course should last at least 10 days.

Thanks for your reply! The 2 younger rats are only 10weeks old. So does that mean the baytril they are on is likely not to do anything? They weigh about 180grams ones a little more than the other cant remember exactly. The vets put them on a 0.7mg of 2.5% baytril twice daily for 10days. Theyve been on it for 5days already and theres not much difference in the symptoms? Is it worth going back to the vet after the initial course and suggesting ivermectin? What would you do? As for you agreeing about not keeping them seperate that makes me happy. They seem to show very positive signs towards eachother and i really wanted to get the two pairs together mainly due to the fact that I dont know exactly how old the older boys are, dont want to end up with a lonely rat when one of them passes. I think ill probably order the Popamazing next week!

You can get ivermectin over the counter; Beaphar does a spot on which you can get in most high street pet shops, or you could order Harkamectin which has the benefit of being much more concentrated so you only need to use a drop, instead of an entire pipette of the Beaphar.

Do you mean 0.07mL of 2.5% Baytril? 0.7mg isn't a liquid measure, and 0.7mL is an astonishing dose. 0.07mL is about right for 180g rats though; I guess your current vet doesn't know about rat respiratory illnesses but at least they can look up a formulary properly, which is not always the case! (The rats are absolutely tiny, bless them. Are you sure they're 10 weeks old?)

When you do finally introduce the rats, I'd use the carrier method, rather than cage swapping. The youngsters could do with a bit more growing though; accidental injuries are a lot more likely when they're so tiny.